Naughtier than Nice (4 page)

“Tell her that calling Mo every blue moon and letting her hear her have a good time in a foreign country is not the same as quality time. Remind her that she is Mo's birth mother and not her second cousin twice removed, so she has responsibilities both emotional and financial and Mo should be a priority, not a second thought and not an afterthought, but her first thought and her first course of action. Each time she eats she should want to be sure her daughter has food, and it should be food on the same level, not a Happy Meal from McDonald's. And ask her about the long-overdue child support. Ask the refrigerator; this house needs the money. You are Mo's primary caregiver, not her, so know her role.”

Now Blue looked like he had a migraine plus a side of Ebola with a touch of hemorrhoids.

He said, “You're right. She's her biological mother, but you have taken on the role of mother.”

“Parity. All I want is
parity
in this relationship. I want to be an equal partner and be respected.”

“I do respect you, Tommie. There is parity.”

“I want consistent parity. You're here with me, then you run off and make unilateral decisions, as if we're not a team. It's as if you have a kid and want to cut away my chance to become a mother.”

I stepped out through the front door, put a smile on my face, said good-evenings and waved at our neighbors. Vince waved. So did Dana. Their two preteen children called out to me. His oldest daughter, Kwanzaa, from Vince's previous marriage, was there too. I wanted to ask Dana how they made it work. I left home, fled the Leimert Park area, the echo of African drums in the air as the
Nubians congregated around the park's fountain to celebrate life, and headed in the direction of Frankie's crib. I had on Old Navy sweats, a wrinkled X-Men T-shirt, trainers. I sent a text message, then deleted it from my history and turned my cellular off. I wasn't planning to go, but the migraine. If I didn't go, I'd lose it tonight.

I looked at my hand; it trembled.

Feeling conflicted, I drove through the top three richest African American communities: Ladera Heights, Baldwin Hills, and View Park–Windsor Hills. I inhaled the air where family incomes were six or seven figures, where all were seemingly affluent and had created their own black Beverly Hills. The air smelled and tasted the same as the air in my working-class zip code, maybe worse, because smog rose and polluted their gluten-free world the same as it dropped down and polluted mine. Many properties were carved into hillsides and had stunning views of the Pacific Ocean, even though the beach was seven miles away, and ten minutes from Hollywood on a good traffic day.

If Blue and I had that kind of money, if we could live on top of the hill, maybe our situation would be different. If we had money, maybe he wouldn't be afraid. Maybe I wouldn't be angry. Maybe Mo's mother would become irrelevant. We'd have ninety-nine problems, but needing her financial support wouldn't be one.

She asked, “Do you really think so?”

I looked at the passenger seat and she was here with me. She held a pad and paper.

I said, “It would be nice to live in this affluent African American community.”

She scribbled. “This isn't affluent. This doesn't compare to Malibu and Bel Air.”

“It's still a nice African American community. Stop writing. Leave me alone for once.”

“You have neighborhoods, not communities. A community is more than having a next-door neighbor who looks like you. The African American community is a theoretical construct.”

“Here we go again.”

“You have to break bread and support each other, shop in black-owned stores to be a community. You drive through the Crenshaw District to get to the mountaintop and most of these people shop on the Westside, or fight traffic north to shop at the Grove, or flee south to their favorite galleria between here and Orange County. They don't drive two minutes away to the Crenshaw District and support black entrepreneurship. My people are afraid of each other and are terrified of their own cousins.”

I eased into the parking lot at St. Bernadette Church, then looked around, made sure it was safe before I grabbed my duffel bag, opened it, and looked inside at the wardrobe I had borrowed from Frankie's closet—without her knowing. I wanted to be impressive, the way he was chic and impressive.

“What you're thinking, that isn't the answer.”

“No one asked you.”

“Blue does his best and you know that.”

“But we're not a
community
. Our relationship is just another
neighborhood
. We live together, but he chooses Angela over me, he patronizes her needs, and therefore he is bigoted with his affections. Maybe we need to put a sign out front and do a short sale, because we're losing value every day. We're already upside down and it feels like we're in a hole so deep that when I look up all I see is darkness.”

*   *   *

I had changed into a silk trench coat and Louboutin boots. He lived on Kenway, one of the most sought-after streets in View Park. Five bedrooms, six and a half bathrooms, three-car garage. Custom built. Cost way over a million. Open floor plan, more than 5,200
square feet of living space, all situated on a huge lot. Large gourmet kitchen with custom cabinetry. Formal living, formal dining, family room, and game room were just a few of the features of his home.

I punched in the four-digit security code. The mechanical gate swung open. His garage door went up. I passed by the circular driveway, pulled into the garage, turned off my car, then eased out, adjusted my attire, and walked up the five stairs that led to the entrance that opened into the gourmet kitchen.

Before I could put my nervous hand on the doorknob, he opened the door to his home. He saw me and whistled. I blushed and took in his undeniable attractiveness. He was a slender, toned long-distance runner who sported an awesome golden Afro. His hazel eyes, so pretty.

Except for the 1978 Rolex Daytona 6263 on his left arm, he was as naked as my thoughts.

Beale Streets was excited to see me again.

Our lips touched, the gap between right and wrong bridged.

Tongues danced to a jazz tune by Miles Davis that played inside of my head. The kiss was medicinal, as a good kiss should be, and with that kiss he gave me his testosterone, flooded my system with his own desire and therapeutic energy. My brain released chemicals that attacked stress hormones.

Right away my disposition improved. My migraine eased up. Nipples rose. I tingled where I would become moist, and with that soft fire I gasped. I held his pending erection and he mirrored my erotic sounds.

When a woman doesn't feel valued, it makes her susceptible to the charms of other men.

A woman would engage in a short sale and change neighborhoods in hopes of gaining a sense of community.

After I kissed Beale Streets, I pulled away, looked into his hazel eyes and measured his emotions. They were obvious, yet it was like trying to see music with my eyes. His feelings overwhelmed me in a good way and made it impossible for me to have the ability to see beyond where I was now.

Beale gave me a dozen butterfly kisses and said, “I've missed you, Tommie McBroom.”

“How was London? I saw the pictures you took at Leicester Square. How were
The
Graham Norton Show,
Alan Carr: Chatty Man,
HARDtalk,
and the other interviews on shows I've never heard of?”

“I was well received. The series of book signings and lectures was also a success.”

“You were on shows that have guests like the Pakistani president, the South African president.”

“They also interview Boy George and Richard Dawkins.”

He did his Richard Dawkins impersonation and we laughed at his rude boyishness.

They paid him between ten and thirty thousand dollars to sit on a stage and take questions for an hour, to tell about being black and growing up white, about the eight-million-dollar home his adoptive parents had on the East Coast, their apartment in Buenos Aires, their flat in London. They loved to hear him speak in French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, or confess his bardolatry and speak in prose as he playfully acted out parts of Shakespearian plays. They
had made him more qualified to talk about race in America than men born decades before him. He existed in a new class, one rare to a black man from America. He was the intelligent, well-traveled man I would want to be if I had been born a man.

I asked, “How were the workouts? You continue training while you were gone?”

“Time change of eight hours killed me, but I managed to stay on schedule.”

“Me, too. I imagined that you and I were running at the same time.”

“Let me see what you're wearing.”

“It's more about what I'm not wearing.”

“Even better.”

“You want to see, you open the coat. You unwrap the box.”

With him I was the older woman, Mrs. Robinson, the one in charge, and I had grown comfortable being with him, more comfortable than I was with Blue, so with him I acted as if I had no behavior.

Beale Streets smiled. “Lord, have mercy. Never saw you look like this.”

We laughed before we kissed again. He led me past sculptures of wood, metal, and marble, beyond high-priced art by Kimberly Chavers and David Lawrence. He had grand bookcases, handmade for a home of this magnitude. One held copies of his works; he had sold their rights in almost fifty languages. His adoptive mother was a writer on the level of Patricia Highsmith, and his adoptive father a man like Steve Jobs. The European half of Beale's apparently mixed heritage, coupled with his upbringing, allowed him to write mainstream characters and no one in the world had complained, especially since his adoptive mother was a mainstream writer. One of her fifty novels was about adopting Beale. The mainstream had embraced him the way a tribe embraced its members, especially
with his well-to-do adoptive parents being highly visible. His works had been adapted into films, into Japanese movies, and rock bands had written songs in Japan and Canada based on political themes in his books. Even a Danish band had written songs inspired by two of his characters. All of that, and he was under twenty-five. He was just beginning. He was five years my junior and had achieved more than ten people usually did in a lifetime. For many of us, it is all about where we started. That was Beale's advantage.

Beale Streets led me to the elevator and once again I was deep inside of his world.

We made out as the elevator took us to the top level and passed by a large bedroom that had been converted into an amazing walk-in closet. He put two fingers inside of me while he licked my nipples. When we were upstairs in his master bedroom, I stood in that cavernous suite and looked around before I looked back at him, gazed into his eyes, his pretty eyes, and felt like I was with a man named Christian Black in a novel inside of my head entitled
50 Hues of Houghmagandy
.

I said, “I can only be here a few minutes.”

“Don't do me like this, Tommie.”

“I'm sorry. Maybe I should leave and come back when I can chill a little longer.”

“Leave Blue; come live with me so we won't have to sneak.”

“Stop telling me that. If I showed up on your porch with my luggage, you'd freak out.”

“Come work for me again. Working at the Apple Store and blogging and editing—you can make much more money if you just work for me. I'm going to option novels, not just mine, but the novels of other writers. I can option novels, own the rights, sell those rights for much more, and I will write a dozen screenplays. I can run my own company out of this house. You can be part of the
journey. We can be a team, become a power couple in Hollywood. You could write a movie or create a television series.”

“I gave it a lot of thought, actually lost sleep over it, but I can't work for you and sleep with you.”

“Why not? I'm not paying you to sleep with me.”

“Stop talking business. Show me how much you missed me.”

We traded simultaneous tongue game for throat game. I used to be terrified to put a man's fuck parts in my head close to where my brain resided. I thought that an anxious thrust when he was about to blow could give me irreparable brain damage. I used to worry about hygiene, the scent of urine, and even worse, experiencing the taste of some woman he'd been with before me. It was laborious. So much work and skill and coordination were required. I struggled to inhale and exhale and not choke. He felt good and when it was done, most of the time I felt nothing but a sore mouth. Plus there was also the fear of bodily fluids. Or that he would go to sleep right after, and I'd be sitting there, mouth aching, feeling like a fool.

But I had outgrown all of that under the tutelage of Blue. It was an acquired desire and it had become a fetish. Beale and I only exchanged favors and flavors for a couple of moments.

I became a cowgirl, rode him for as long as it took the second hand to make three cycles around the clock, then I reversed the cowgirl. Soon I leaned forward; he adjusted and was on his knees. He adjusted me, put me on my knees. My face was in the pillow, muffling my harmonic sounds, until he pulled my hair, made me raise my face so he could hear my eloquent moans. There was no child here to hide my sound from. I could be as loud as I pleased, as loud as he made me be loud. He was the dog behind the moaning cat. I was his Calliope in brown skin, his inspiration to endure his own erotic madness. He made lights flash behind my eyes. He made me float. The silk trench coat was pulled up over my
backside; the boots were still on my feet. Then I pushed up on my elbows.

She said, “Tommie McBroom. You're here again.”

Her voice jolted me.

I looked across the room.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

Again, as it had been in the car, it was me. It was the therapist who lived inside me. I saw myself across the room. I wore a long black skirt, white blouse with long sleeves. My hair was one color, deep brown, and it was straightened, pressed, pulled back from my face. I looked socially acceptable. I held a legal pad in my left hand, and with my right, I wrote notes about myself to myself, about how I saw myself outside of myself. That version of me stood up, walked over to me, kneeled next to me, and put her lips close to my ear.

She whispered, “Stay on this path and you will suffer. Not only mentally but physically. Irritable bowel syndrome, upset stomach, muscle aches, tension headaches, panic attacks. This is how you medicate yourself, but this could cause you to become infertile, which would be ironic.”

I closed my eyes, felt tears coming. That version of me stopped talking. I squeezed my eyes tight, let the tears fall. Each time I'd been with Beale I'd cried afterward. I opened my eyes to see what the therapist who lived within me had to say. She was gone. She had rejoined me. We were one.

Beale playfully nudged me as he asked, “Did you orgasm?”

I playfully bumped him back and nodded. “If that was a song, I'd put it on replay.”

“This isn't about sex. This is profound. This is about the chemistry we have, about a love so overpowering that when I can't see you I feel depressed. I was unable to write while I was gone. I couldn't write one decent sentence. You stoke my creative energies. This is about me needing you in my life.”

He kissed me. Kissed me. Kissed me. I saw the time. I hadn't planned on being here any more than fifteen minutes. I hadn't come for conversation. Until Mo's mother had called, I hadn't planned on coming at all. I hoped that Blue hadn't called Frankie's crib looking for me. My phone was turned off, so if my sisters had called me, they would've called my house when I didn't answer. Blue could've called my phone to make sure I made it to Frankie's without being jacked or getting into an accident, and when it went to voice mail he would have called Livvy or Frankie's cell phone. I imagined that everyone was in a panic right now, not knowing where I was, calling the LAPD and the sheriff's department, hoping I hadn't been kidnapped, robbed, raped, killed, my body left in a pool of blood in our concrete jungle.

I pushed myself up on my elbows, and in a panicked voice I told Beale, “I need to leave.”

He pulled me back to the bed, mounted me again, put my ankles around his neck, and rubbed the length of his erection where I was most sensitive. He moved up and down, his weight pressing into me. I closed my eyes, wrestled with the good feeling. He made me want more. He made me feel happy.

He said, “I bought you a present from my last trip.”

Barely able to breathe, I gazed at him. “Did you?”

“I did.”

“Give it to me.”

“Next time I see you, you will get your gift.”

“That's not fair.”

“This isn't fair for me, Tommie.”

“I need to go.”

“I need to come.”

He entered me and every part of me trembled.

My soul quaked.

“You want me to get in trouble.”

“I love you, Tommie McBroom.”

“You're trying to get me in trouble.”

“I love you so fucking much I can't stand not having you.”

I put my legs down, pulled him to me, clamped my hand over his mouth, muted his romantic words as I wrapped my legs around his ankles. Then we fought each other, fought each other and laughed when he slipped out of me. I moved and refused to let him back inside, became silly, and he wrestled with me as we laughed. He found his way back inside of me and I stopped fighting, became aroused, and then he was once again powerful between my legs, moving deeper inside of me again.

“Don't come inside of me this time.”

“Pearl necklace?”

“Okay.”